Eury
rrProfessor
Location: Ankeny, IA, USA.
| OK, it's built with the exception of installing the servos, setting up the links from the servos up through the swash, and glueing the carbon rods for the tail together. Total time to this point is about 5 hours, that's a little bit more than building a 600N, but only because of the preassembly that Align does on some parts, and the extra adjustments on the X50. There are no more parts on the X50 than on the 600N, and the build is only slightly more difficult, not even close to building an MA heli. I can take a 600N from box to the air with all setup in about 7 hours, I'd bet I have a total of 8 into this by the time it sees the sky. Not really much of a difference there.
Head
On the head setup, I previously mentioned the radius block and washout not fitting together. After looking at it with fresh eyes, Mr Green was right, the pins were tweaked more than I realized, so a couple minutes with a pair of pliers corrected that issue. Everything moves smoothly now, but there is enough drag that the swash/washout won't fall under its own weight. After taking it all apart, I've traced it to the liner inside the washout lock being just a little tight. I'm going to fly it like it is and recheck after a few flights, I'm betting that it wears in and ends up nice and smooth. Pretty much every link in the head had to be sized, they were all tight, but with a little attention, they fit perfectly with no slop and little to no friction. In all, a VERY nice head.
Tail
Moving to the tail, it's one solid unit. Looking at pictures, I had my doubts about the tail box's robustness, but in person, it's more than up to the job. It's one solid machined block with a single bolt on cross member at the back to allow removal of the belt. The sides of the box fit perfectly inside the boom, and it is retained by 4 bolts from the sides. Very nice design, easily the best I've seen. Out of the box, the tail slider and pitch change arm assembly had quite a bit of binding, I traced it down to 2 places. First, the bolt that holds the pitch arm can't be over tightened, or it will drag. Second, the delrin insert in the pitch arm that mates with the ball on the slider was a bit too small and causing drag. A little bit of xacto work cleared that right up and now it has a slop free, friction free action to it.
I didn't use the stock tail grips, instead I ordered the metal thrust bearing units, which are a nice design, with strong 1 piece grips. The grips are retained by a nylon insert nut, which I like, and there is plenty of room to get a wrench in there to turn it. While the grip assembly was preassembled, it does need to be taken apart, as there is no grease on the thrust bearings, and when reassembling, care has to be taken to not over tighten the nut or it will cause the grips to bind. The correct tightness of that nut leaves the end of the tail hub just about level with the end of the nut, so the nylon insert is engaged and preventing the nut from coming loose. I would prefer to see a little extra material sticking out, but it should be fine as is, I'll be double checking that nut when I go through the heli after flying. There is no endplay in the grips, and they don't rock back and forth like some thrust bearing tails (Evo for instance), so it'd be simple to tell if that nut was coming loose just by checking for play. Mounting the tail hub assembly to the box, I again had to adjust the ball links coming from the pitch slider as they were tight and would have caused binding.
From there it was just putting the belt down the boom (nice belt, it looks almost exactly like the Raptor's, which I've never had a problem with). I used something that I saw in a magazine to put the belt down the boom. Generally I just fish it down, and figure out any twists once it's through, which can be frustrating since it sometimes falls off the end of the rod or whatever I'm using to push it down. This time I put a paper towel inside the belt at the end and pushed them down as a unit, it kept the belt tight in the boom, and also kept it straight. I've been doing this for nearly a decade and a half, wish I had seen that when I started!
I've got to go out to buy some JB weld to make the pushrods with, and set up the servos and links, but I can give a pretty good impression of the overall heli at this point.
Good points:
1. It is a much nicer design than a 600N. If you buy a 600N pro for $600 when you could have this, you're crazy. The materials are nicer, the construction is better, it doesn't have the slop, it doesn't have the parts that need to be upgraded out of the box, it's just superior in every way in construction. Flying wise I'll see this weekend, hopefully. Even comparing it to my $400 600N Sport, it comes out as a better deal, I still had to add $110 for a swash and washout, $20 for a fan, and other misc parts totalling about $100 to get it to where it isn't sloppy, and is robust enough for the long term. At which point I have more into the 600N than I do in the Xtreme 50, and it's still not nearly as nice a machine.
2. I know that every step of the way I talk about adjusting links and tolerances on a few parts, but I never had anything that was sloppy, everything I had to adjust was because things were a bit tight, so I was able to get them perfect with no slop. I love the delrin insert in the washout and tail pitch change arm. It makes 2 areas that are relatively high wear have nice smooth movements and should prolong the life of those parts. I dunno if the delrin inserts are available seperately or not to replace when they wear out, but if they are, that would be ideal. I'd much rather have something like the X50 where I have to open up some holes and size some links than my 600N where it's loose and sloppy out of the box.
3. It's just well thought out. Little things like the way the tank mounts ensures that there won't be any vibration, nice little key in gyro trays that add no weight, the delrin inserts in wear parts, stiff frame and landing gear structure that ties in together, and the dual collets on the fan really show that the designers were thinking when they came up with the heli. I couldn't be more impressed with the design. It is above the rest of the 50s out there, without exception.
4. Very nice painted canopy.
Not so good points:
1. Things I don't like are few. First, the manual needs work. The diagrams should be improved and linkage lengths should be on the page when you build the links. I can see how Patriot21 missed some things in his build and made those posts about it. The manual's diagrams throw 100 parts all in one picture, then don't show you the holes to put them in. Not good, and easily the weakest part of the package. If you've built a bunch of helis before, you're not going to have any real trouble, but it'll still take some thinking.
2. Plastic, radial bearing tail grips. Seriously? A kit of this caliber with plastic radial bearing tail grips? I'm sure they work fine, it looks like they put a Raptor 50 tail in it, which works fine. But I've had issues with radial tail grips in the past, never had one with a thrust bearing tail. It's like the heli was being designed and they put the best of everything into it, and at the end of the day they realized they never designed a set of tail grips for it, and were too tired, so they just threw in something they had on the shelf. It's disappointing, and doesn't belong in a machine of this caliber. The upgrade tail cost me $40, and should be what's in the box.
3. Kinda nit-picky, but the fan shroud is tiny, and doesn't go over the head of the engine. I'm sure it works fine, my Evos didn't cover the head either and never had a problem, but it'd be nice if it did for better cooling.
4. That nice painted canopy is pretty flimsy. Comparing it to the other FG canopies I have here (Fury, and 600e), it is much thinner material. I don't see it being repairable in after a crash. Yes, it saves weight, and looks great, but I wish it had been made more robust. I've repaired numerous FG canopies, but this seems like it's going to tear and be impossible to salvage. I could be wrong, maybe it'll hold up well being so flexible. We'll see when I drive it into the ground at some point. As a comparison, here's the thickness of the 3:
X50 - .75mm
600e - 1mm
Fury - 1.25 at the thin point, tapering up to 3mm towards the rear where the mounts are.
Also, I would have liked to see the canopy mount holes already there. They have provided dimples to mark them, which is nice, but having the holes would be better.
In all, the negatives are pretty minor, and if you are willing to to buy the thrust bearing tail and are an experienced builder, the negatives would only be there if you are looking for things to complain about. This is a great heli, I'm more impressed by it than I've been of any other heli I've owned in this size, and it's right there with the various X-cells, Furys, and Stratus I've owned in the past. Can't wait to see the X90 come out.
Nick Crego
Back off man, I'm a scientist. |
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